


Poppies & Pearls

by shatteredhourglass



Series: a perfectly normal clint barton au [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Avenger Clint Barton, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon Disabled Character, Fae Magic, Flirting, Inadvisable Magical Contracts, M/M, Modern Bucky Barnes, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21902224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: The woman leans over the counter and this close, Bucky can see the slitted pupils. He struggles not to recoil at the thin forked tongue as she parts her green-painted lips to speak. “You look a little… lost, perhaps, coming to my store.Areyou lost, my dear boy?”“I was told you could help me,” Bucky manages to get out.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: a perfectly normal clint barton au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920214
Comments: 85
Kudos: 260
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland





	Poppies & Pearls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClaraxBarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/gifts).



> I had three options and somehow I ended up using two of them - Urban Fantasy and Modern Bucky/Hawkeye Clint. My only regret is that I couldn't push in Stripper!Clint as well, but that might've been a mess. Still, I hope you enjoy it, Clara!

A bell chimes when he enters the store.

That’s the little slice of normal that makes Bucky start breathing again, and he releases his chokehold on the crumpled piece of paper in his pocket. There’s a faint sound of music in the place, something light with piano and flutes that’s nothing like the shadowy whispers and unearthly growls that accompanied him through this part of town.

A few candles light up the space, but it’s still more dark than light in here.

Bucky glances at the shelves of jars and rocks as he steps further into the space. One jar looks like it contains something oily and black that’s squirming around in the water and he bites back the nausea that rises up his throat. It feels wrong, being in this place, and he knows he’s not supposed to be here but this is his only lead.

“This way,” a voice calls, raspy at the edges.

Bucky heads for it, but for such a small room the shelves are set up like a maze, and he ends up in front of a row of luminous rocks instead. One of them is bright, almost violently blue and he’s oddly drawn to it. It’s not what he came for, but he _needs_ to touch it and-

He’d been warned about this.

Bucky shakes it off, heads for the counter he can see amongst the piles of things he refuses to look too closely at. His fingers clench around the piece of paper again, so hard his fingers start to ache, but it distracts him from all the different objects clustered around the store and getting caught again. He’s so focused on not paying attention that he trips over a basket of bread, nearly falls flat on his face.

“Oh dear,” the voice from earlier says. It’s distinctly feminine, and he raises his head to see a blonde woman sitting at a fairly mundane-looking counter, with the innards of a pocket watch strewn over the wood.

Bucky blinks at the screws and gears. At least he’s in the right place, he thinks blearily. He tries to ignore the way his skin starts crawling with unease.

The woman leans over the counter and this close, Bucky can see the slitted pupils. He struggles not to recoil at the thin forked tongue as she parts her green-painted lips to speak. “You look a little… lost, perhaps, coming to my store. _Are_ you lost, my dear boy?”

“I was told you could help me,” Bucky manages to get out.

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh? How curious.”

Bucky doesn’t answer verbally - mostly because he’s scared and nauseous in a way he can’t remember ever being - and instead pulls his hand out of his pocket, fumbles the buttons of his shirt open one-handed. It’s a difficult task and he feels his face heat up even as he manages to get the last button open, push it off his left shoulder.

The woman makes a curious noise and her eyes go wide with interest. He’d worn a sleeveless shirt underneath for this exact reason. The scars are still horrifying to glance at even now, lacing up the skin like it was flayed open, angry-looking pink and white lines. It still _hurts_ , and Bucky doesn’t look at the space where his left arm was as he shifts the fabric away so the woman can see the damage better.

Instead he keeps his eyes on her face, and that’s a mistake as he watches her lick her lips like it excites her. The shiver that rattles him is definitely a bad one.

“I can do something with that,” she says finally, twining a strand of gold hair through her fingers. Then she grins at him with far too many teeth. “My services come at a price, however.”

“I’ve heard,” Bucky answers, tries to keep the unease from his voice. It doesn’t work, based on the way she tips her head at him and her grin widens. “I know it costs something. I don’t- it doesn’t matter what the cost is.”

“Oh my,” she replies, clapping her hands together. “That is _fascinating_. Such a pretty boy, too.”

She pulls a booklet of paper out of nowhere and Bucky can’t help but feel like this is _wrong_ , like everything is slightly tipped a few degrees to the left. It’s probably just because he’s not supposed to be here. He’s being stupid - of course it feels strange and frightening, he’d known that before he snuck out and used an elaborate code to get to this part of town.

“Sign here and here,” she supplies, pushing the contract over to him with an odd-looking pen. “I’d give you a _different_ kind of contract, but you wouldn’t know anything about those kind of things, would you, you precious little mortal?”

Bucky doesn’t answer her. He might be sick if he does.

Instead he reaches with shaky fingers for the pen, and as he closes his hand around it there’s a stinging pain. He hisses and nearly drops it, then looks down and realizes there’s a barb on the pen and it’s _supposed_ to do that. Of course. He swallows hard and tastes bile.

Some part of him was convinced this is all an elaborate joke, but it’s pretty hard to ignore when the woman in front of him is clearly a monster and he’s writing a contract for a new arm in _his own blood_.

Bucky can’t read the contract. He tries, but the words slide away as he tries to focus, like they’re avoiding his gaze on purpose. Maybe they are. He knows he’s not supposed to ask what he’s trading in return for the arm, but he’s starting to think it’s more than money. Fuck, what is he doing here? He’s not-

“Sign it,” the woman hisses, and his hand moves towards the page without his consent, a drop of blood landing on the wood of the counter.

Bucky feels cold all of a sudden, the chill winding deep into his bones and making him ache. It’s not the constant, persistent ache he gets in his bad shoulder. It’s worse somehow, so frigid that it burns, has his breath coming out as mist.

The woman laughs at him and it echoes in his ears so painful he feels like there should be blood coming out. The nausea gets worse, and he can only think one final sentence as he gets closer to signing the contract. He can’t _breathe_.

He’s made a mistake, coming here.

His pen’s just about to touch the paper when warm fingers catch his wrist, pull it away gently.

“Hold it there,” a voice says over his shoulder, and the world snaps back into place. “Amora, you know playing with mortals is against the rules.”

“He came to _me_ ,” the woman - Amora - snarls. “It’s a fair deal.”

“If it was a fair deal then you wouldn’t be forcing him to sign,” the man says dryly, and he comes into view a second later, peers into Bucky’s face. Bucky faintly registers scruffy blond hair and heartbreak-blue eyes, lips turned into a faint frown. He’s got a purple band-aid stuck on his nose, and Bucky gets stuck staring at it. “Hi there, buddy, you shouldn’t be hanging around h- hang on, you’re Steve’s boy, right? Bucket?”

“Bucky,” he corrects after a few seconds of trying to get his mouth to work, and the name comes out rough.

“That’s it,” the man says. “I was kind of close, right? I tried. I’m Clint, I work with Steve.”

Huh. Bucky looks down at the blood slowly leaking through his fingers and Clint mutters a few curse words, tries to gently prise the pen from his hand. It works, after a few seconds, and Bucky starts breathing again when Clint tucks the pen in his pocket of his sweatpants.

“C’mon,” he says, tipping his head in the direction of the exit. “This isn’t the kind of place you want to be.”

“Excuse _me_ ,” Amora says, and Clint grimaces before he snatches the contract up and pockets that too.

“Go play with Loki. Even better, trip and fall on a knife,” he tosses over his shoulder as he starts nudging Bucky through the shelves. He moves like he knows exactly where he’s going, and the hand pressed against Bucky’s spine is so _warm_ that Bucky wants to melt into it. He feels so relieved that he nearly chokes on it, and then they’re out in the night air and Clint lets go of him.

“You okay?”

Now he’s out of that place, he’s realizing just how close he came to messing up beyond repair. Bucky’s got no doubt that woman would’ve either killed him or done something much _worse_ , and he curls in on himself, tries to breathe. The whispering he’d heard earlier is gone, but his heart’s beating way too fast to be healthy. What the fuck is he _doing_?

“Jesus, you’re shivering,” he hears Clint mutter, and then something warm and soft is being draped over his shoulders. “How about we get you out of this place, huh? ‘s not a good part of town for civilians. For anyone, really.”

Bucky’s knee-jerk reaction to people treating him like he’s made of glass is to tell them to fuck off. This isn’t that. Clint sounds more frazzled than Bucky _feels_ , and when he looks up he notices Clint is wearing a Lady Hawkeye shirt covered in coffee stains. It doesn’t feel patronizing like some people get when they notice the guy with one arm.

“I’m okay,” he manages to get out, finally.

“Alright, that’s something,” Clint says, eyes flicking over to the storefront they’ve just exited. “We should start moving before she calls Loki to deal with me. The fae like holding grudges.”

Bucky just looks at him blankly, and Clint scratches at the back of his head and sighs. He’s _pretty -_ in a normal sort of way, luckily - the angle of his jaw catching the lights littered around the vine-covered street. The shirt’s a little too small, too. Bucky tries not to stare too much - now’s _not the time_ to be thinking about the Hawkeye-themed cosplay porn he’d been watching last night.

Clint starts heading in a completely different direction to the one that Bucky had taken to get here. It doesn’t make any sense, but Clint’s lead seems more reliable than Bucky himself, so he makes his shaky knees move.

The place seems less scary with company. Although it might just be _Clint_ and sure, Bucky’s friends with Captain America, but it’s different. Clint starts talking about an episode of The Good Place he’s watching, just a steady stream of words with a faint Midwestern accent. It should be silly. It is silly, and yet it’s calming the nerves that have been choking Bucky since he got out of bed this morning.

“-and it’s absolute _bullshit_ that they haven’t had a poly relationship in all those reboots, because they’re only one functional person when they’re together,” Clint says, and Bucky can’t stifle his laughter. “What? I’m right, you know I’m right.”

“I haven’t seen it,” Bucky admits. “Surprised you have time to. Steve’s always doing Avengers this, superhero that.”

Clint lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Steve needs the fight like he needs to breathe, but he’s an outlier. The rest of us aren’t like that.”

There’s something tired in his voice and yeah, Bucky can understand that. Sometimes it feels like too much effort to even get out of _bed_ , he can’t imagine being an Avenger and fighting day in and day out on top of that. They stop at a gate that’s more smoke than metal, nothing like the grate Bucky had held his piece of paper up to, and Clint passes an Avengers ID card over to the glistening hand that appears.

“What were trying to make a deal for, anyway? Must be pretty important, if you’re heading into the supernatural district and risking the fae,” Clint says.

Bucky doesn’t reply verbally, but he does glance down and to the left for a split second, not fast enough. Clint’s looking at his shoulder when he turns his attention back, biting his lip thoughtfully.

“Stark was working on stuff for disabled people, prosthetics and stuff. I bullied him into it,” he says finally, tips his head to the side. Like this, Bucky can see the faint gleam of metal behind his ear, and he frowns. When had that - _right_ , the media never reports on Hawkeye, of course. Why would they mention hearing loss? “Maybe you should try asking Steve.”

“Steve just looks like a kicked puppy when he sees it,” Bucky mutters, curls in on himself.

Clint makes a thoughtful noise. “Yeah, that’s Steve for you.”

The smoke in front of them wavers and then parts, leaving a person-sized gap for them to walk through. It closes the second Bucky gets out into the street, and then he glances back to see a plain brick wall. He reaches out with his hand, touches the bricks gingerly. They’re solid, and he’s sure the bewilderment is written all over his face when he turns back to Clint.

“It doesn’t get any less weird,” Clint supplies, which isn’t particularly comforting.

“Great,” Bucky says dryly. “At least I’m not a superhero. Just a guy.”

They start walking again and Bucky’s starting to recognize it as New York, the _normal_ New York and not the shadowy streets they’d just come from. He’d never thought he’d be this happy to see the grime-covered concrete and shouting drivers again.

“That’s what I tell people about me,” Clint replies. Pauses, looks a little awkward. “I was there, that day. You did a good thing, especially for a civilian.”

“I know,” Bucky says. “I’d do it again if I could, I just…”

“It sucks,” Clint finishes.

Yeah, that about sums it up. It _does_ suck. Clint nudges his side gently and Bucky gets that weird warm feeling again, avoids the urge to shuffle his way under Clint’s solid-looking arm. He looks up at a billboard instead, catches an eyeful of Steve’s ass. Who’s idea was that?

Whatever expression he’s making must be comical because Clint starts laughing. Bucky looks away from it, frowns at the neon-lit street.

“We’re nowhere near my apartment,” he observes.

“I was going to ask you if you’d be willing to stay at the Compound for the night anyway,” Clint admits. “After being in _that_ store, it’s probably a good idea if someone keeps an eye on you just in case. Steve’s out on a mission, but if you’re not comfortable having me around, I can ask Nat? She doesn’t bite too much.”

“No,” Bucky says hurriedly. The Black Widow is goddamn _terrifying_ , he doesn't want her watching him sleep. Clint looks faintly worried and he backtracks, feeling his face heat up. God, he’s trying to look like a capable human being and he hasn’t managed a single second of that in front of Clint. Luckily Clint seems just as messy as he is. “I mean - you’re fine. If you’re sure.”

“Can’t let Steve’s friend get stolen away on my watch,” Clint says breezily as they head in the direction of the Avengers Compound. Bucky’s strangely disappointed until he adds, “also, you’re too cute to be stolen away by the fae.”

Bucky flushes harder, looks away in the hopes that Clint won’t notice. “Shut up,” he mutters.

Clint _does_ shut up, but Bucky gets the feeling he’s just humoring him. They walk in silence for a few minutes and Bucky tugs the hoodie a little tighter over his chest. Clint doesn’t even look cold in the slightest and Bucky has no idea how he does it. Some sort of superhero shit, probably.

“You can sleep in my bed,” Clint offers. “I think the sheets are clean?”

Bucky snorts. “Where’re you sleepin’?”

“The floor?”

“Yeah, no,” Bucky says, fights past the bubble of nerves. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“What if we just share the bed?”

“Okay,” Bucky blurts out before he can second-guess himself.

They get to the gate where JARVIS greets them both by name after a swipe of Clint’s ID card, and then they’re heading up the road to the Compound. A question strikes him as they’re approaching the door, because Bucky knows why _he_ was in that part of town.

“What were you doing down there?”

“Oh, you know,” Clint says distractedly. “Stuff. Things. Let JARVIS take you, I’ll be there in a second.”

He’s an Avenger, Bucky thinks to himself as Clint offers a wave and then trails over to where he can see Natasha Romanov leaning up against a desk. Avengers do a lot of weird missions that don’t make any sense - he knows that, he’s friends with Steve Rogers, after all. Speaking of, he’s got to see if Clint will lie about where he found Bucky. Steve wouldn't be happy about it.

JARVIS guides him to Clint’s room. It’s a fairly spacious bed, and as he stands in the middle of piles of clothes and arrows he realizes again that he could have died tonight, if it wasn’t for Hawkeye appearing out of nowhere. An extra arm wouldn’t have been worth it.

It’s only as he’s curling up in bed with the purple hoodie still wrapped around him, keeping him warm, that he remembers something that’s been bothering him since he’d been guided out of that store and along the streetlights, something he couldn't quite articulate until this moment.

Clint didn’t have a shadow.

**Author's Note:**

> Title Song: [Hang on to Yourself - Palaye Royale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjSobSYXo_8)  
> (Warning for flashing)
> 
> I'm oddly charmed by the idea of Loki and Amora/Enchantress running a Big Nope Fae Magic store. I want to write more of this verse now. :,)


End file.
